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THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF VERMONT: 



AN ESSAY 



READ BEFORE THE 



GENEKAL CONVENTION OF VERMONT, 



AT NEWBURY, 



21 June I860, 



BY REV. PLINY H. WHITE. 



PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE CONVENTION. 






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MONTPELIER: 

Walton's steam printing establishment. 
1866. 



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4* 



ESSAY 



It needs little argument to show that history is the only solid foundation 
upon which to build a well proportioned and enduring superstructure of 
learning. In every department of intellectual effort, the value of historical 
knowledge is recognized, and no one feels himself well grounded in his spe- 
cific science, profession, or art, unless he knows the facts connected with its 
rise and progress. Facts are the food of the mind, which it digests, and 
from which it excogitates thoughts and principles. It is for lack of such 
food that many of the speculations of the German mind are so thin and wat- 
ery, and it is because of an abundant supply of such nutriment that the An- 
glo-Saxon literature is so hearty and satisfying. How important history is 
to the theologian, may readily be inferred from this, that so very large a part 
of the Scriptures, both of the Old and the New Testament, is history. Nor 
is the circumstance to be overlooked, that the historical portion of the Scrip- 
tures not only exceeds in quantity all the other portions, whether song, 
proverb, prophecy or epistle, but precedes them all in the order of arrange- 
ment. He who inspired the sacred volume and controlled its arrangement 
and proportions, has hereby given us very decided intimations as to the true 
value of historical knowledge. 

History is valuable not only because it informs us as to the past, but be- 
cause it throws light upon the present, and enables us to exercise a wise 
forecast as to the future. There is nothing new under the sun, and there is 
not likely to be. The great movements in social, political, and moral life, 
no less than the great movements of the planetary and stellar systems, are 
in circles. In due season the same combinations of causes occur again, and 
the events of history are repeated. " The thing that hath been is that which 
shall be." Even the extraordinary and apparently anomalous events that 
sometimes occur, would be found to have their precedents, if only our ac- 
quaintance with precedents was sufficiently extensive and minute. Our re- 
cent war, strange as it was, and accompanied by so many circumstances that 
were thought to be quite unparalleled, was but a repetition in America of 
what had previously been transacted in Europe among the cantons of Swit- 
zerland ; our great tragedy, indeed, being performed upon a larger theatre, 
and with more extensive appointments, but presenting with astonishing fidel- 
ity all the leading features and a multitude of the minor details of its re- 
hearsal on the transatlantic stage. 

To a mind, therefore, capable of memory, analysis, and comparison, a 
thorough and critical knowledge of history will very often be equivalent to 
personal experience, as a guide through the tangled affairs of life. If his- 
tory is thus important to the intelligent man in whatever department of effort, 
it is of pre-eminent importance to him who has to do with the moral and re- 
ligious movements of the world. The springs of human action being always 
the same, and always acting in the same medium of native depravity, the de- 
liverances of the human mind and heart in any particular moral direction 
cannot materially differ at different times. Means may differ, phraseology 



4 THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF VERMONT. 

may change, methods of operation may vary, but the premises and the con- 
clusion will be substantially identical. There are new styles of conveyance 
in the spiritual as well as in the material world, but the starting point and 
the terminus are the same as of old. We see this illustrated most clearly 
and forcibly by the periodical recurrence of the same doctrinal heresies, 
sustaining themselves by the same arguments, and opposing the same objec- 
tions to the truth, as they did in the by-gone centuries. Millerism, Univer- 
salism, and nearly every other form of misbelief, emerge and subside from 
time to time, and stand to-day, if they stand at all, upon the same arguments 
and no other, that have had the breath of life beaten out of them on scores 
of the old battle-fields of Theology. 

In connection with these observations upon the history of misbelief, it is 
obvious to remark that the historical method of presenting the doctrines of 
the Christian faith is one of the most effective which the theologian can em- 
ploy. The warm and lively colors of the concrete catch the eye more rea- 
dily, and hold the attention more closely, than the grave and subdued tints 
of the abstract. 

Every mind appreciates a well authenticated fact, relating to any subject 
in which the mind is interested. The Theologian, then, who would set any 
doctrine of revelation in a clear, bright light, and impress his hearers with 
a sense of its Scriptural authority, can do nothing better than to trace his- 
torically its gradual communication to man and his gradual reception of it, 
from its first faint appeal to the human mind in its infancy, through 
successive clearer and fuller revelations, as the mind was able to bear, down 
to the time when the doctrine was announced in all its completeness, "totus, 
teres, et rotundus ." By the same process, he would show more forcibly 
than in any other way, the mutual connection and interdependence of the 
two volumes of revelation, and of the earlier and later books of each, when 
it thus appeared that the earlier prepare for the reception of the later, while 
the later enable us to understand the otherwise obscure hints and intimations 
of the former. 



Not to protract these general remarks on the value of history and the 
historical method, 'we proceed to remark that the ecclesiastical history of 
Vermont has special claims upon the attention and study of every Vermont 
minister, and, indeed, of every Vermont christian. To speak only of the 
enjoyment to be experienced in the study of it, it is beyond question that 
the facts thus brought to view, and the reflections to which they naturally 
give rise, will afford an intellectual gratification not to be surpassed by that 
arising from any other source. Especially is this true in regard to the early 
history, which partakes very largely of the same romantic element that dis- 
plays itself in the early civil and political history of Vermont. How could 
it otherwise than share in that element when the same men were, to no small 
extent, the actors in ecclesiastical and political affairs. They were men, 
for the most part, of scanty culture and moderate learning, but sensible, 
shrewd, and original, and they left their peculiar impress upon all with 
which they had to do. Many of them were men of deep and decided as 
well as peculiar piety, with an almost Puritanic quaintness in many of their 
sayings and doings. 

It is a question well worthy of investigation by the student of Vermont 
ecclesiastical history, whether the first permanent settlement of the State did 
not have its origin in religious convictions, and was not occasioned by the 
desire of finding freedom to worship God, as well as was the original settle- 
ment of New England by the Pilgrim Fathers. Quite certain is it that the 
first church organization in the State, the Congregational church in Ben- 
nington, consisted mainly of persons who had separated themselves from 
other churches for the sake of greater liberty and zeal in the Christian Life. 
Jt was in fact a Massachusetts church transplanted, bodily, pastor and, all, in- 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF VERMONT. 5 

to the wilderness at Bennington, and the concerns of the little colony- 
were managed with reference to the interests of the church as entirely as 
were the affairs of the colony at Plymouth. And the lesson taught us 
by the early history of that church in regard to the Christian shrewdness, 
which, without exercising any intolerance of opinion, or dealing oppress- 
ively with persons of different faith, or of no faith at all, nevertheless so 
managed affairs that religion was the controlling power, and Congregation- 
alism the only form of religion for nearly two thirds of a century, is worth 
being attended to and practiced upon in these latter days when there are so 
few communities, if any, in which religious concerns are not made subordi- 
nate to social, political, or business considerations. 

A thorough acquaintance with the ecclesiastical history of Vermont will 
relieve its ministers from much of the distressing anxiety they are likely to 
feel in reference to the success of their labors. For it will assure them of 
the fact that the places where, little more than half a century ago, the dis- 
couragements to the minister were the greatest, and their expectations the 
faintest, are the very places where now the institutions of the gospel have 
their firmest foothold, and the churches are strongest in numbers and influ- 
ence. At that point of time, the minister and church exerted almost no re- 
straining influence upon the depravity which prevailed in such places as 
Montpelier, St. Albans, Rutland, St. Johnsbury, and other towns, in which 
we now witness an altogether different state of things. What is said by 
the historian of the St. Albans Church, in regard to the condition of morals in 
that town, was true with but slight modifications of the other towns named, 
and of numerous others. " In addition to the desecration of the Sabbath, 
which was exhibited every week upon the public square, in the most open 
and defiant manner, it is said that many of the leading men of the town 
were habitual and shameless gamblers, and that gaming was practiced, with 
little attempt at concealment, even upon the Sabbath — that brutal fights at 
trainings, raisings, and the like gatherings, were of common occurrence — 
and that intemperance was scarcely regarded as a disgrace, so many being 
involved in it, and that too, in good standing in other respects, it attracted 
but little attention." Ministers and Christians, who see and lament a simi- 
lar state of morals in the places where Providence has cast their lot, may 
gather hope and courage for the future, as they see the changes that have 
been wrought through the instrumentality of the gospel. 

An acquaintance with the ecclesiastical history of the State will furnish 
at least one ground of encouragement for those ministers, possibly the ma- 
jority in the State, who do not hope, and cannot reasonably expect ever to 
see their churches large and strong, but who must needs content themselves 
with maintaining the status in quo, if indeed they are spared the painful 
sight of churches continually declining, and verging towards extinction. 
That is the present and prospective condition of many churches in the more 
strictly rural parishes. Business is going to decay, population is diminish- 
ing, emigration is sapping the very life-blood of society and the church, and 
the tendencies of everything are downward. But the past history of our 
churches shows us that even this state of things is not without its mitigations 
and compensations. It is from these same churches, which barely hold their 
own as to membership and organic power, that there come the principal re- 
cruits for the ranks of the ministry. It is curious to observe that the church 
in Cornwall, whose membership has decreased two-fifths in forty years, has 
given birth to almost a score of ministers, and among them some of the 
leading theologians in the land, while the Montpelier church, smaller forty 
years ago than that in Cornwall, but now having more than twice as many 
members, has produced but one minister, native of that town ; that the 
church in Thetford, which has decreased 20 per cent, has produced sixteen 
ministers, while the church in St. Albans, which has increased fifty per cent., 
has produced but two ; and that the church in Halifax, which has all that 
time been dwindling away, till it has at last become utterly extinct, has, 



6 THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF VERMONT. 

during the lingering consumption of which it died, given birth to ten min- 
isters and missionaries, while the church at St. Johnsbury, which has become 
four bands, with an aggregate membership of more than half a thousand, 
has sent out only two ministers. Here is encouragement for the minister 
or member of a stationary or declining church, as well as a subject for the 
philosophical historian to speculate upon, and inquire into the reason of this 
contrast. 

Notwithstanding what has been said of the advantages of an acquaint- 
ance with the ecclesiastical history of Vermont, these advantages and what- 
ever others of the same kind, are practically denied to those who might be 
benefitted by them. The ecclesiastical history of Vermont is a sealed book 
because an unwritten book. Fragmentary portions of it exist in a printed 
form, as chapters in local histories, as church manuals, as historical sermons, 
as articles in periodicals. But these fragments are few in number, and small 
in bulk, and there are not many persons who possess them all, or even the 
major part of them. Other, larger, and more valuable portions exist in the 
form of centennial and semi-centennial sermons, which have been preached, 
but remain as yet in manuscript, accessible only to the authors.* Some por- 
tions exists in the form of church records, very many of which are called 
records on the lucus a non lucendo principle, because they record little or 
nothing that one wants to know. But by far the largest, and that the most 
interesting and instructive, remains in the memories of ministers and other 
Christians, who could tell, if they would, of glorious revivals, and the agen- 
cies by which they were carried forward, of afflictions and tribulations, and 
how out of them all the Lord delivered them, and of the ebb and flow of 
Christian life, by which the churches have been built up and made strong, or 
divided, scattered and peeled. He who should attempt to make himself ac- 
quainted with the ecclesiastical history of Vermont, would soon discover 
that he had attempted a task, compared with which the study of the Hebrew 
language, or of the Hamiltonian philosophy, would be mere child's play. 

To collect and digest these abundant and widely scattered materials, to 
select judiciously from the great mass, and to present the solid facts in an 
accessible form, would be a task requiring immense toil, indeed, but never- 
theless worthy to be done, and, when done, a work of great and permanent 
value. Such a work should contain, in the first place, a history of each in- 
dividual church, from its foundation, setting forth the circumstances in which 
it was founded, and the facts attending its rise and progress, the method 
by which it was built up, the special difficulties it had to encounter, the pe- 
culiar means by which its prosperity was promoted or its decline effected, 
and, in general, whatever has helped to bring it to its present state. In 
connection with the history of each church, there should be a record of the 
lives and labors of its ministers, with such an analysis of their personal and 
official character as will exhibit and explain their relations to the growth 
and character of the church. In some cases this must needs be a very prom- 
inent feature of the work. Such men as Merrill of Middlebury, Hopkins 
of New Haven, Clark of Bennington, Jackson of Dorset, Worcester and 
Merrill of Peacham, Birge of Guildhall, Brainard of Randolph, Smith of St. 
Albans, and Burton of Thetford — not to mention a score of other names 
that occur to me — are not to be dismissed with a paragraph. The impress 
which they made upon their churches was so deep and strong that it is visi- 
ble to this day, and will remain visible for long years to come. 

Nor should there be omitted a similar record concerning the men whom 
each church has given to the ministry. With a not unholy pride may the 
Congregational churches of this State point to the five hundred and fifty 
native sons of Vermont who have entered the ministry, and say: "These 

* A Sermon preached in Bennington, by Eev. Isaac Jennings, on the Centennial Anniversary 
of the organization of the Bennington Church, is worthy of especial mention; and, if ever given 
to the press, it will be found to he "the most valuable contribution to the ecclesiastical history 
of Vermont that has yet been made. 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OP VERMONT. 1 

are my jewels." They are found in positions of usefulness, gaining respect 
for themselves and honor for their native State, and doing good service in 
the cause of Christ, all over the land from the St. Lawrence to the Sacra- 
mento, and from the Kennebec to "the continuous woods where rolls the 
Oregon." You will find a Vermont minister in the extreme South-west of 
Texas, doing picket duty so far in advance of the ecclesiastical body to 
which he belongs that it has never yet held a session within two hundred 
miles of him. You will find one in Washington Territory, preaching the 
gospel in a house of worship built at his own charges, and planting Congre- 
gational institutions there in advance of all others. You will find them all 
along the perilous edge of battle, where it raged and still rages between the 
advancing spirit of freedom and the retreating spirit of slavery. You will 
find them wherever there is a blow to be struck for truth and righteousness, 
wherever there is a giant evil to be fought and subdued, wherever there is 
work to be done for God and humanity ; and wherever you find them, they 
are not ashamed of the mother who bore them, and she has no occasion to 
be ashamed of them. 

The ecclesiastical history of Vermont will not be completed when all the 
facts are put on record. There yet remains the not less severe task of 
determining and announcing the philosophy of the facts. It is of compara- 
tively small account to know that such and such events took place, unless it 
can be determined with some reasonable degree of certainty why they took 
place. It is only because we reason from like causes to like effects that a 
knowledge of the past can be of any service to us in forecasting the future, or 
can aid us in our endeavor to reproduce any of the desirable features of the 
past. If we have the effects only, the facts, our acquaintance with history 
will be of small value to us. There is need, therefore, of rigid investigation 
into the hidden causes of the events which are put on record, that so those 
events may stand in their true light, and may reflect a light that shall not 
mislead us in our way through the future. 

It is hardly necessary to say that an ecclesiastical history of Vermont, upon 
the plan now proposed, is not a work to be accomplished by any one person. 
No man could possibly achieve the undertaking, unless by devoting his 
whole time to a task, in which there are great difficulties to encounter, toil- 
some work to do, not a few rebuffs and disappointments to experience, and 
little recompense to be received for all, except the satisfaction of doing a 
good service to the churches. This suggests the one practical observation, 
with which this essay closes. Every minister should feel under imperative 
obligations thoroughly to investigate, and put on record, the history of his 
own church, as his personal contribution to a history of all the churches. 
No one can do this as well as he. Much of its history has taken place 
under his own eye, and is the result of his own labors. He has more ready 
access than any other person can have to all the sources of information that 
need be consulted. He needs to know the history for his own sake and for 
the sake of the church, for he cannot understand his church unless he knows 
the experiences through which it has passed. If he does not do the work, it 
is very likely never to be done. Let every minister, when he returns from 
Convention, make it his earliest labor to write the history of his church, and 
having written it, to make sure that it is preserved, by committing it to the 
press. By this means, and this only, can we reasonably expect ever to ac- 
cumulate the materials of which to construct " The Ecclesiastical History of 
Vermont," 






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